The Excavation of the Moundsville, Alabama - Mississippian Culture Archaeological Site

Originally entitled "Temples And Peace 1937 by Department of the Interior. Division of Motion Pictures. This Public Domain government film highlights the excavations of the burial mounds at the Moundsville, Archaeological site in Alabama. With the State of Alabama we reach the eastern frontier of the Lower Mississippi archaeological province. Alabama might well be called the "buffer state" between the Peninsular and Georgia-Carolina districts on the one hand and the Lower Mississippi on the other, for it shares certain manifestations of cultures with all three. The most important site in Alabama, however, and in many respects in the five states comprising the Lower Mis- sissippi area, belongs thereto exclusively, for it shows almost no contact with other cultures of the state or with those of Florida and Georgia. Near the city of Moundville on the line between Hale and Tuscaloosa counties, on the south bank of the Black Warrior River, is one of the finest mound groups in the country. Exploration work conducted intermittently dur- ing the past twenty years, but for the most part by Clarence B. Moore in 1905 and 1906, has yielded an abundance of rich material of value to the professional student of American archaeology and of fascination to those whose interests are more casual. On a level plain extending back from the gullied bluffs of the river nineteen square and oval flat-topped mounds vary- ing in height from 3 to 23 feet are arranged in a rough circle about two others, 22 and 57 feet high. Most of the mounds, including the two latter, have one or more graded ways con- necting their summits with the level ground. The oblong mound lying nearest the center of the group covers the largest area, I 95 by 35 I feet, although it is less than half as high as its companion directly to the north. On the north side of this latter mound is an artificial platform about 1% acres in ex- tent. The plateau upon which the group is situated is well above the highest level reached by the waters of the Black Warrior River. During two separate expeditions to Moundville Moore exca- vated some 560 individual burials. About 455 of these came from level ground around certain of the mounds, the remainder being found in the mounds themselves. A large number of earthenware vessels and other artifacts accompanied the bur- ials, and often these objects alone were the only indications of an inhumation, so badly were the human remains disinte- grated. Not a single object of European origin was met with at Moundville, and this may be regarded as conclusive evidence that the occupation of the site lay entirely within the prehistoric period.